2021-22 Sustainable Development Transformation Forum: Building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and fostering the implementation of the 2030 Agenda

UNOSD contributes to building, exchanging, and facilitating the use of knowledge in support of sustainable development. One of UNOSD’s flagship activities to fulfil this goal is the annual Sustainable Development Transformation Forum (SDTF), which normally gathers around a hundred people in Incheon City at the end of October every year. However, due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the 2020 SDTF originally scheduled for October 2020, had to be postponed to February 2021, and held online only. Although the UNOSD had kept up hope to hold the next SDTF fully in person in Incheon up to very recently, it had to back away from this option. Hence the next edition of UNOSD’s 2021-22 work plan, will be held online again this year.

As in most of previous editions of the SDTF, this year’s Forum will follow the thread of the forthcoming High-level Political Forum (HLPF 2022), which has the overarching theme of Building back better from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDTF will feature the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will go under in-depth review during the HLPF in July 2022, namely SDGs 4 on quality education, 5 on gender equality, 14 on life below water, 15 on life on land, and 17 on partnerships for the Goals. The 2022 edition of the SDTF will also strive to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on SDGs 4, 5, 14, 15 and 17 but also across all the SDGs given the integrated nature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The overarching objective of the 2022 SDTF is closely linked to the HLPF 2022, aiming to offer a platform for capacity building, policy dialogue and knowledge sharing for building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDTF will aim to achieve a better understanding of success, challenges, lessons learned, and good practices related to the implementation of SDGs 4, 5, 14, 15 and 17, the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on those and across all the SDGs, and identify potential solutions to advance the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Forum will take place through a series of 2.5-hour online sessions over four days from 28 February to 3 March 2022 (inclusive), 8:00pm to 10:30pm, Korea Standard Time (KST).

The 2021-22 SDTF is organized by the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) of UN DESA, Division for Sustainable Development Goals (UN DESA-DSDG) in collaboration with the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF).